Gigaba orders forensic probe into Tegeta/Eskom contract

Cape Town - Finance Minsiter Malusi Gigaba on Friday announced he has directed National Treasury to do a forensic probe into Eskom's coal contract with Tegeta Exploration and Resources in line with the contents of a report into the deal.

The contract with Tegeta, owned by President Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane and the Gupta family, was probed by National Treasury and the report handed to Parliament's watchdog on public accounts (Scopa) in May.

Gigaba sought to withdraw the report from Scopa earlier this week, citing it not being the final report.

However, Gigaba changed his tune on Friday.

"Treasury has reviewed the enforceability of the report and the report sent to Scopa still stands," the finance ministry said in a statement.

"DG [director-general] signed off for the forensic investigation on the 26th of July 2017."

In April this year, it was reported that the draft report, which was handed to Eskom, Tegeta, Scopa, the Auditor-General, and the Public Protector was leaked and proposed that a payment of R659 million to the company be converted to a loan repayable with interest.

Reportedly, this was proposed because there was no evidence that Tegeta used the money for the stated purpose of buying equipment for its mining operations.

The Tegeta report flows from an investigation by the chief procurement officer into contracts worth more than R10 million entered into by state-owned enterprises. The aim of the probe was to establish whether each such contract complied with public procurement rules and regulations.